


give you my wild, give you a child

by singsongsung



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: AU: Alexis goes to the Galapagos, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy, inspired by tswift's folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: Alexis’ plans for the Galapagos start with pina coladas - and kind of end there, too.But Ted does what he tends to do, what’s proving to be a pattern: he upends her plans (or lack thereof), her ideas of herself and of the things she wants, and Alexis finds herself taking his hand and following along, without a beat of hesitation, without a breath of a doubt.
Relationships: Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose
Comments: 27
Kudos: 108





	give you my wild, give you a child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [packageofgirlyevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/packageofgirlyevil/gifts).



Alexis’ plans for the Galapagos start with pina coladas - and kind of end there, too. She’s certain she and Ted will have excellent, late-night sex on the beach, the kind where the stars will imprint on their eyelids and the moon will paint their skin and, afterward, their laughter will puncture the midnight peace, because there’ll be sand _everywhere._ Otherwise, though, Alexis has kept her plans pretty loose and centered on relaxation. She intends to read that life-affirming book that was turned into a Reese Witherspoon movie, to examine herself and her goals, to wear her favourite tropical-vacation dresses, and to watch Ted thrive, to listen to him talk about turtles with his blue eyes so bright she’ll want to interrupt him with a kiss.

But Ted does what he tends to do, what’s proving to be a pattern: he upends her plans (or lack thereof), her ideas of herself and of the things she wants, and Alexis finds herself taking his hand and following along, without a beat of hesitation, without a breath of a doubt.

At Tortuga Bay, he coaxes her into the open water, even though the bikini she’s wearing is meant for tanning, not swimming, and _definitely_ not snorkeling, and all of a sudden Alexis is three inches from a baby shark. In the absence of her snorkeling gear, her jaw would’ve hit the ocean floor.

Ted’s fingers brush against her thigh, her hip, her arm, and then he _touches_ the shark. Alexis turns giant eyes toward him behind her goggles, and follows his hand with her own.

It’s like something snaps into place inside of her. The parts of her that used to run tipsy and laughing along Parisian streets, that used to slip into exclusive Tokyo clubs with a flutter of her lashes, that dismissed Ugandan diamond smugglers with a dramatic roll of her eyes, that could climb into a suitcase and zip it closed behind herself in under a minute - those parts reactivate, in a way, her craving for adventure reignited and redirected. She wants adventures again, but new ones, adventures of a different kind.

And this time, she wants them with Ted.

She stays up late, wrapped in one of his sweaters, and waits for tortoises to clamber, slow and almost majestic, up onto the beach; her heart turns melty and malleable at the sound of Ted’s quiet gasp. They go kayaking, and when she tips over she laughs at the look on his face as she breaks back through the surface of the water, and he shakes his head at her and smiles (but it’s not funny, not really, and clinging to her overturned kayak, Alexis splutters, _I love you_ , because she needs him to know that this isn’t the thing that will make her leave, turn her back on this, on him, on _them,_ and make a run for civilization, for the comfort of Starbucks and Sephora; she’s beginning to think, now, that nothing could feel more enchantingly like escape than right where they are with one another). She gamely accompanies him on an excursion and finds herself clinging to him in the muggy, thick heat of their tent, trying to keep quiet as they unravel each other, but still, in the morning, few of Ted’s colleagues seem able to meet her eyes.

The weekend they see a colony of sea lions near San Cristobal, Alexis ends the Sunday puking her guts out on the side of a dirt rode. Ted gathers her hair in one hand and rubs her back with the other, murmuring about the rough ride in the sea taxi, the possibility of heatstroke. Alexis lets herself be cared for, half-sleeping against Ted’s shoulder for the remainder of the ride back to his apartment-style dorm, his fingers tenderly combing salt-air knots out of her hair, and in the morning, when he’s at the research center saving turtles and ecosystems, she makes her way to Puerto Ayora and finds a pharmacy, where she buys not one but four pregnancy tests - which is, she thinks, something her brother would probably do if it was possible for him to end up in this sort of situation.

All the way back, she keeps blinking hard, like the sun is in her eyes, even though it isn’t. Her eyes seem to need to close and open again to confirm that she is where she is, that there’s a plastic bag rustling whenever it bumps against her knee, and that it’s been significantly longer than a month since her period made her rethink wearing a white bathing suit.

In the tiny bathroom, Alexis takes all four tests. There’s just enough room on the floor for her to sit, if she squishes a little against both the sink and the shower stall. She lines the tests up in front of her and watches two lines emerge on every single one.

She exhales, slow and shaky, “Ohhh-kay.” That’s some pretty solid evidence, sitting right in front of her. Science, basically. Her last high school classes still fresh in her mind, she thinks that science usually has a single answer, a single solution, a single formula. There’s not exactly a way to argue against proof.

“Okay,” she says again. Proof is proof. She chances a peek down at her abdomen, half-bared beneath her cropped tee. “Um,” she says quietly. “Hi?”

Ted finds her in the same spot when he returns a couple hours later. Alexis looks up at him with her heart in her throat, her hands trembling in her lap, and waits for him to understand.

He sinks down onto his knees next to her when he sees the tests and registers what they are. He leans forward to look at the results of each one before he turns to her, his hands seeking hers automatically. “Alexis,” he says, his voice soft and just barely unsteady.

“Yeah,” she says, squeezing his hands tightly, meaning, _yeah, I know, this is crazy._

He nods. He looks at her for a long moment, searching her face, and then his eyebrows inch up the tiniest bit. She can read the question: _are we doing this?_

She draws in a breath, less shaky this time, and swallows hard. She gives him several quick, small nods in response.

The smile that breaks out over Ted’s face is probably the most beautiful thing Alexis has seen, ever and anywhere. “Oh, baby,” he says, cupping her face in his hands and pressing a firm kiss to her cheek before he pulls her into a hug. “I love you so much.” He breathes a stunned laugh. “ _Both_ of you.”

She snuggles into his hug, pressing her face into his shoulder. He smells like sunscreen and the soap they use at his lab, like her own perfume and like her sweetest daydreams. “Love you, too, Ted,” she murmurs into his shirt.

There’ll be no cliff-diving, she thinks - at least not for her. But there will be an adventure.

fin.


End file.
